Airborne Plume Detection

Industrial accidents, wildfires, and terrorist attacks can all take the form of hazardous airborne plumes. Because of these plumes, this can jeopardize the health of people caught in their path. Early detection and real-time monitoring of the location and intensity of such plumes is possible due to small, low-cost chemical sensors and Nano gas technologies. Such sensors often deploy in difficult locations to reach, and so must be able to operate for long periods without calibration or maintenance.

Nano Gas Technologies

NevadaNano’s Molecular Property Spectrometer™ (MPS™)—a robust, low-cost, silicon-chip-based sensor platform—is well-suited for ubiquitous deployment across large areas, such as cities or large facilities. Such deployments can be fixed or mobile. In recent work for the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force, NevadaNano is one of the IoT infrastructure companies that are collaborating with robot experts at the University of Utah to demonstrate the use of the MPS™ aboard quadcopters. These Nano gas technologies use systems that autonomously avoid obstacles while conducting real-time chemical mapping of airborne chemical plumes. System data will wirelessly relay information to a central command post to provide real-time, actionable intelligence.

Benefits of MPS™

A deployed matrix of MPS™ sensor modules is a smart way to track a broad spectrum of hazardous chemicals using Nano gas technologies—enabling myriad applications in military reconnaissance, surveillance, law enforcement, hazardous waste inspection/removal, search and rescue operations, and remote sensing and mapping.

Breathe easier. The chemicals we breathe are invisible to our eyes. And our nose.

Typical indoor air contains dozens of chemicals at concentrations in the parts-per-billion (ppb) or parts-per-million (ppm) range. This is well below their odor thresholds. But just because we can’t smell these chemicals doesn’t mean they don’t harm us. The World Health Organization’s 30-minute exposure limit for the carcinogen formaldehyde is 80 ppb. That is twelve times lower than the concentration at which we can detect it with our noses: 1,000 ppb.

Our own noses exhale the most common indoor air pollutant—carbon dioxide—but can’t detect it. Nor can we detect dangerous concentrations of benzene or toluene—both of which are present in the air in 90 percent of North American residences, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EPA studies further show that the concentrations of at least a dozen common organic pollutants are 2 to 5 times higher inside our homes than outside.

We need to know what’s in our air so we can do something about it.

Manage Indoor Air Quality the Smart Way

As our homes get smarter, the sense of digital scent provided by IoT infrastructure companies will improve our health and make us safer. The Molecular Property Spectrometer™ (MPS™) can analyze indoor air quality in real time to provide accurate, actionable data.

Such data can be used to immediately notify occupants of hazardous situations (such as a natural gas leak), or be integrated into automated, demand-controlled ventilation systems to effectively and efficiently manage air quality—saving lives and energy. The MPS™ can even serve as a “pre-smoke” detector by warning of a fire at a very early—even pre-fire—stage, based on the presence of vapors produced by overheated materials before combustion even begins.

Air Quality Sensors

Most real-time, indoor air quality (IAQ) sensors available today measure and report a generic, composite value, known as the “total Volatile Organic Compounds” (“TVOC”) concentration, present in the air. While useful, such sensors typically suffer from unwanted environmental cross-sensitivity, which can lead to false readings due to fluctuating humidity levels, as one example. More critically, such technologies cannot make a distinction between toxic and non-toxic compounds. The MPS™ has the power to enable just this type of assessment, in a low-cost, low-power, and reliable platform. So we can all breathe easier.

Natural Gas

The production of natural gas is at all-time highs since 2005. While the burning of natural gas for power and heat produces fewer carbon emissions than coal, the natural gas supply chain is prone to leaks. A massive 2018 study* coordinated by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and published in the journal, Science, estimates that natural gas operations leak 2.3% of the total gas extracted. For every hundred cubic feet of natural gas that comes from underground reservoirs, consequently 2.3 cubic feet is put into the atmosphere. The leaks vary in severity and are widespread.

This is a serious problem that IoT infrastructure companies have been trying to solve. Natural gas consists almost entirely of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas. It has more than 80 times the climate-warming impact of carbon dioxide in the 20 years following its release. Methane emissions account for about 25% of the warming experienced today.

The Solution to Methane Gas Leaks

People often overlook the climate benefits of cleaner-burning natural gas because so much of it leaks.

Leaks also mean lost product—to the tune of at least $30 billion each year. The only way to mitigate these leaks is to detect them. Current ‘fence-line’ methane gas detection systems, like open-path lasers, are bulky and prohibitively expensive to deploy. Such technologies do not lend themselves to leak localization. (Using them as such is akin to determining which room in a massive apartment building is on fire by measuring how much smoke blows across the property line.)

To truly locate methane leaks across the entire supply chain, there needs to be a new sensing paradigm: low-cost, real-time sensor networks. The MPS™ Methane Gas Sensor utilizes cloud-based, 24/7 monitoring with an array of sensors mounted near potential leak points can enable early methane leak detection and rapid localization. Infrastructure companies have noticed that IoT connected, cloud enabled sensor networks are the best way to achieve fast mitigation times, thus reducing the amount of methane lost into the atmosphere (and from the bottom line).

Methane Gas Detection

NevadaNano’s new MPS™ Methane Gas Sensor is the first completely innovative technology for methane gas leak detection in over 40 years. The key shortcomings of existing sensing technologies are no longer a worry due to the NevadaNano sensors. The MPS™ is a robust Microelectromechanical-system (MEMS) platform that is inherently low-power, poison and drift-resistant to enable calibration intervals that can be measured in years. Built-in environmental compensation is crucial because it delivers reliable, accurate performance across a range of harsh conditions, from -40C to 75C and 5% to 95% relative humidity.

* R. A. Alvarez et al., Science 10.1126/science.aar7204 (2018) .

Flammable and Combustible Gases

In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded. The incident killed 11, injured 17, and resulted in one of the biggest oil leaks in history. Prior to the explosion, combustible natural gas had accumulated to dangerous levels. However, the sensors that detect high levels of combustible gases were silent to avoid the regular hassle of false alarms.

Detecting flammable and combustible gases quickly and accurately is a matter of life and death. First responders and industries that process hydrogen, hydrocarbon-based fuels and chemicals, and explosive substances, value accurate detection of gases with technology from IOT infrastructure companies. The flammable and combustible gas detector can protect valuable infrastructure and the environment at large.

Gas Detecting Technologies

Currently, available sensing technologies from IOT infrastructure companies are competing in key aspects of performance, reliability, and cost-of-ownership. NevadaNano’s new MPS™ Flammable Gas Sensor, also known as the LEL Gas Sensor, is the first completely new technology for flammable gas detection in over 40 years. It was designed to address the key shortcomings of existing combustible, flammable, and explosive gas sensors.

The MPS™ Flammable Gas Sensor not only acts as a hydrogen gas sensor, but it can accurately measure the concentration of an unprecedented 12 different flammable and combustible gas mixtures. Further, it can classify detected gases into categories: hydrogen, hydrogen-containing mixtures, or natural gas, and light, medium or heavy gases/mixtures. This addresses the need for a sensor platform flexible enough for complex industrial environments.

How The Flammable Gas Detector Works

The MPS™ has a robust Microelectromechanical-system (MEMS) platform that is inherently poison and drift-resistant, enabling calibration intervals that can be measured in years. Built-in environmental compensation enables reliable, accurate performance across a range of harsh conditions, from -40C to 75C and 5% to 95% relative humidity.

Levels of functionality and reliability set a new standard in flammable gas safety all because of the critical role of MPS Flammable/LEL Gas Sensor.

Refrigerant Regulations

Concerns over climate change are leading to new laws restricting the use of refrigerants common in air-conditioning systems. Emerging government regulations at the state, national, and international levels want to phase-out refrigerants with high Global Warming Potential (GWP). Such refrigerants are thousands of times more polluting than carbon dioxide.

These new regulations have emerged within the last year, with a short time window to achieve compliance. This poses a variety of challenges for residential and commercial HVAC equipment manufacturers. This is an issue because firstly, manufacturers are being mandated to develop new and environmentally friendly, Low Global Warming (LGW) refrigerants and cooling systems. Secondly, they must be able to react to and conduct refrigerant leak detection (per, e.g., ASHRAE Standard 15 and UL 60335-2-40) with refrigerant gas sensors. This is because next-generation refrigerants such as R32, R454b are flammable (ASHRAE safety classification 2L or A2L) at certain concentrations in the air.

Refrigerant leak detection with the refrigerant gas sensor is therefore a matter of both safety and environmental protection—one that has made refrigerant gas sensors a rapidly emerging global market.

Environmentally-Induced Refrigerant Leaks

The inner workings of an AC unit can experience wide humidity and temperature swings. Most of the sensors on the market today have difficulty maintaining effectiveness in such conditions for extended periods of time. Meanwhile, consumers have come to expect high reliability—the AC should “just work” all the time. Downtime due to faulty refrigerant gas sensors, requiring visits from technicians, is a non-starter. Of immediate need is a sensor developed by IoT infrastructure companies that are capable of dependable and accurate gas sensing in a harsh environment.

NevadaNano’s MPS™ A2L Refrigerant Gas Sensor has been configured to provide just what this emerging market needs: a robust, refrigerant-dedicated sensing solution like that can reliably recognize leaks over a long field life, in real-world environments, without frequent servicing.